


The shadow of the wind

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, ziam
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-09 17:32:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1148861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liam reads an amazing book and decides to met the author.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The shadow of the wind

**Author's Note:**

> Oh god, my summary sucks D: I don't know what to say about this. Maybe just don't read it? Anyway, I hope you guys will like it--in case you really read it. Sorry for the mistakes, english isn't my first language at all haha. 
> 
> The title is from a Carlos Ruiz Zafon's book. That book kind of inspired a little for the topic. Loads of love. xx

Liam was waiting anxiously for summer break to come. Since he’s in college, he never has time for anything else than studies and working and he really needs to hang out with his friends. And now that he’s in break, he’s going to enjoy it.

Liam is like that—he used to always be at parties and just chill out with his mates, but that was before college. Since he’s at school, he just _lives_ at school and goes to work. He has a job, yeah. Nice but kind of boring sometimes—he’s cashier in a library, but he doesn’t complain since he has a free book each month because his boss is nothing less but amazing with his employees. Seriously, he can’t really complain about a thing in his life. Well, maybe he can complain about not being in a relationship anymore but to be honest he doesn't care that much.

It's monday and he’s at work, asking what Mark and Eleanor—two of his colleagues—were up to tonight. “I wanna make a party at my house” says El with a grin, “but I work all week. So you’ll have to wait ‘til Friday Li.” Mark sighs, asking her why she decided to work full time on summer if she already was rich. She just rolls her eyes and goes in the back store while Mark goes to the office.

The library is empty at this time of the day, so Liam decides to look at which book he’s going to take this time. He has read so many of them over the past 3 years, so now it’s just kind of hard to find a nice and new refreshing one.

Liam looks over the rows, searching for something new even if he knows he probably won't find anything.  While he’s searching he notices there's a book in the wrong section, and while he takes it he drops all the books from there because he's a total goofy. "Fuck" At least there's absolutely no one. Eleanor comes and asks if he wants some help, and he nods with a small laugh. "This is what happen when I try to do more than my job."

"You're the goofiest and the laziest boy I ever met" she chuckles, putting some of the books in place. "Hey, what's this book?" she takes the small book that captured her attention and shows it to Liam. "I've never see it before... look in the computer where it is supposed to be placed, I'm taking care of your mess."

Liam looks at the cover, and frowns. It looks like a picture someone just took of his own hand holding a picture half burned where you can barely notice a young kid—probably around 3 or 4 years old. Liam makes his way to the computer, searching the title in the register of the store. He types _Words to save_ \--nothing. He types the author this time  _J.M Al,_ and finds 3 books title available on the library but none of them is the one he has in his hands— _May the wind_ , _June 16th_ and _Through your nightmares_. There's one copy of each of one apparently. "Mark? El?" he yells, "can one of you guys search something for me?"

"I'm busy over here" yells Mark back from the office. Of course he is, Mark is the new assistant manager since last week, so now he has no time to chill with the others employees as before. Liam kind of misses it.

"Ouf, done", says Eleanor standing up and making her way to the computer, standing beside Liam, "what's up?"

"This book" he says putting the book in front of her, on the desk, "isn't in our archives. But there are some other books from the same author we are supposed to have and I was wondering—“

"Let me check if I can find them" she says, eyes wide opens with a genuine smile, writing down in a post-it the titles and the author before going away. Eleanor is probably the one who introduced him to the fascinating world of the literature. She's also the one who recommends him all the books he buys or get with his _worker-month-gifts_ —that privilege is only allowed to the employees that have worked there for at least two years and consists about being allowed to pick the book of your choice once a month and have it for free, as a gift. El works there since she's 14 until now and because they have always being best friends, she asked his uncle—their current boss—to engage him. He couldn't find a better job, he's aware of that.

When Eleanor comes back, she's frowning, looking once again in the computer if she wrote the correct things. "That's kind of weird, they are not there. Let me check in the back store, yeah?" she was walking through the back store when she turns around, "Since that book isn't in our register, you can take it. It won't count as your free book. Just don’t tell my uncle I allowed that."

"Thanks but I have that pretty thought this book will be awful", Liam says with a chuckle, putting it under the cash register this time to be sure he won't forget it.

"Who knows" says El with a grin, "maybe this book will change your life, hon."

 

\--

 

And Eleanor was probably and totally right.

He read the book in almost 2 days, and when he finished it he simply couldn't believe what he'd just read—and almost lived. It was brilliant, and amazing. While he was reading he thought he was living Daniel Sempere's life (main character from one of his favorite books) and it was simply stunning.

_The story is about a boy named Benjamin Morgan, he's 14 and he wants to die since the first sentence of the book. He feels empty, like he simply doesn't fit in this world at all so he kills himself. But then, he becomes a ghost. As a huge fan of Supernatural, he wonders if he has a mission on earth because he's sure he's not a 'bad ghost'. So he decides to take care of his family—parents and an older sister. One day, while he's watching his mum cooking, he sees her sobbing, and whispering something like 'we shouldn't have take him from there, we shouldn't'. Ben doesn't understand that, but his dad clearly does because he gets mad and yells at her to never talk about this anymore. Ben decides to investigate by himself what his mum was saying. Around six months later he discovers what she was talking about by spying at her and his older sister. His family was keeping a secret since his birth. He wasn't their child. In fact, his mum wanted a son so badly but since Noel—his older sister—every time she was pregnant the baby just died. So one day, she stole a newborn at the hospital and leaved the city with her husband and Noel. Ben couldn't believe it. His life was an entire lie. He was kidnapped, for fuck sake! So this is how he decides to discover who he was. He follows loads of clues and discovers so many things about himself and his 'family' until he finds real clues about his real parents. Most of the story is about all the things he could have being if his 'parents' didn't just take all of him away, what if he was still alive, and stuffs like that._

_And then he wakes up in the hospital. He wasn't dead. He tried to kill himself, but he failed, so the whole thing was maybe just a bad dream, but he couldn’t be sure. In the moment he wakes up he asks his mom if she kidnapped him. She frowns at him and smiles sadly. "I think today may be the right day", she says, sighing. And this is how he discovers he was adopted. His real mother wanted to abort and was about to do it before she met his mum. Ben cries, happy and hugging his mum, thanking her for everything and apologizing for what he did._

_At the end, he's 31, and his mum is dead. But instead of being sad, he decides to write a book about what he dreamed 17 years ago, hoping maybe his mum will read it while she's taking care of him from where she is, and hoping she knows how much he loved her, and how grateful he was because of those two times she saved his life._

At the second he finished it—was about 3am—he walks to his laptop on the desk beside his bed and takes a seat. He has to know who this writer is, and he wants all the books he ever wrote in his life. 

He spends an hour searching. _Nothing_. There's _nothing_ specific about the author. The only name appering is the one he uses for the writtings, but J.M. Al is clearly a pseudonym. The author's a male. He's born the 12th of January—there's no year. He grew up somewhere in Barcelona. He never attended any interview, and there’s not a single bloody picture of him. Liam frowns at the computer, and tries to find some of his other works but there's nothing too. Well, the books do exist, of course. But none of them are in English and they are in no library since the author asked to publish a specific number of copies and they have all been sold— _who the hell asks for a limit of production? Is that even possible_? So Liam just closes his laptop and lay on his bed, wondering if El could help him tomorrow making some research. Yeah, he'll call her tomorrow.

 

\--

 

Liam is waiting for El in a Starbucks, sipping at his coffee. It's Wednesday, 6pm and he feels like it was 3am. He didn't sleep properly this night, and he can't be more grateful that it’s his day off—without that he would probably be dying at the moment.

Eleanor walks in and he can see Louis--the hottest barrista-- already preparing her medium white chocolate mocha—‘ _extra whipped cream, don't forget babe_ ’. She gives him the money and a generous tips as always, thanking him and sits in front of Liam. "That's really too bad he already has a boyfriend" she sighs, "why is every hot guy already taken or gay. And yes, I'm also talking about you, jackass."

Liam chuckles and Eleanor snorts, trying to hide her amused grin. Eleanor says Liam is gay, but in fact he doesn't even know himself if he really is. Like, he can be into boobs as much as he can be into dicks. He doesn't have a gender, that's what he always says. More simple than trying to explain it. 

"So since I finished working I went to my house and made some research and I swear this whole story is kind of weird and it took me all my time to figure out the whole thing. It's—it remembers me a book. Or books, in general, with those amazing plots." She takes another sip or her coffee while she takes out of her handbag a sort of folder she puts on the table. How did she find the time to find all of this —because that folder had about 15-20 pages!!—in just _three fucking hours_? "You'll thank me later, we don't have so much time," she says. No time? No time for _what_? He doesn't have the time to ask because she's already talking. 

"It wasn't easy but I found some information. This dude is between 20 and 23 years old—I seriously thought he was maybe like 40 but in fact no, he's pretty young—,he dropped out school when he was 15—don't look at me that way look at the second page, I have proofs of what I'm saying--ANYWAY. He lived in Barcelona but he grew up in our country—he's from Bradford to be exact—with that man at page 4" she points at a blurred picture, "His name is Niall Horan, he's the one who _apparently_ published his books and he’s a good lad of Jay." She goes to the page 10, "It was kind of impossible to find things about Jay, so I searched more about that Niall boy. He's maybe 22, he's Irish and from a rich family, he loves to party—that’s what I found in some of his old friend's accounts so I can’t be sure of that. There's something weird though", she turns at page 12 and points a paragraph," _Maison d'édition Delacour_. That publishing house doesn't even exist, isn’t that weird?? Anyway. The books were pretty popular in Spain, Portugal and France. So basically, he wrote it in one of these language, probably in french--because of that _Maison bla bla_."

"But mine is in english what—“

"Look at page 15" she cuts with a smirk. She really made a huge research.

Liam looks at page 15 and reads, eyes openning a little more each second past. Many people wanted an English copy, so that’s what he did. J.M.—or Jay, as Eleanor says—allowed to publish _15_ copies in English. _Only 15_. People places their bids, and the 14 winners paid around 200 000$ each one for their unique copy—unique yes, because each copy had a different cover. "Wait. But why 14? What about the 15th?" Liam asks.

"Look at the four last pages" Eleanor says, taking the last sip of her coffee, grinning—clearly proud of herself. "There's a picture of each copy, with their owner." Liam frowns, looking at each cover. He raises his eyebrows, and opens his mouth. What the actual fuck. The copy he possesses isn't one of the sold ones. "Yup. You have the only copy that no one ever knew how it could look alike. His value is probably higher than 200 000$."

"What about the French and Spanish versions? I saw there was no book… well there's nothing in libraries" says Liam, completely stunned.

"Oh, they were kind of best-sellers Li, each of them, sold in less than a day, but Jay never wanted to publish more than 100 000 copies in each country. 100 000 books for _each_ fucking country, do you realise how selfish that is? Look at page 6 or 7, I put there the price of each book. They cost around maybe,hm,15 pounds? But people wanted them so badly it was crazy, so some libraries took advantage of that, selling the books way more expensive than the regular price. Of course, they'd get arrested but that’s another story. So yup. Weirdo isn’t it?"

"Shit" Liam sucks in a breath, "so we don't know where he is? There's no way to communicate with him?"

"No" Eleanor says, "but because I'm such a stalker I discover that Niall is right now in Paris, visiting old friends. So I may have bought you a flight to Paris. Don’t thank me yet, you’ll have to use your credit card for hotels and stuffs and—"

"WHAT?" Liam chokes, eyes wide open, "But I don't—how am I supposed to pay you back?"

"Liam James Payne!" she says loudly, and many of the customers looked at her, "we know each other since we were using diapers. I don't care. Just have fun. I told you this book was going to change your life, didn't I?"

Liam kisses her loudly, thanking her while she was giggling, happy to see his best friend exited about it. "You have a fly to catch up in maybe 5 hours so be quick, babe. If you ever find Jay, please I beg you to take a picture—rumors say he is gor-geous.” Liam laughs and kisses her one last time before living the Starbucks.

"Paris here I come", he says to himself, sprinting to his home.

**Author's Note:**

> Probably never going to write another chapter bcs this one was quite awful D:


End file.
